Life is make believe, fantasy given form

Five Elements Anthology Supports Children’s Literacy

Children have a natural love of books. I remember reading to my daughter as an infant and toddler. Her first words weren’t mama and dada. In her little, raspy, Yoda voice, she uttered, “Reeead booook.”

We cuddled as we read the same books over and over and over and over and over again until we’d both memorized the words. We made weekly trips to the library and carted armfuls of books back and forth to our little home. She still loves to read.

The Overlord, age 1

Now I’m repeating history with the overlord, already book-obsessed at the age of two. Here he is reading one of my books. He just got to the good part!

When my writers group and I pulled together a little sci-fi/fantasy anthology, not one of us volunteered to take the role of accountant. To make things easy, we elected to donate 100% of the profits to support a literacy program for children run by Willamette Writers, the largest writers organization in the Pacific Northwest.

The program, Books for Kids, collects and distributes books to underprivileged youth in over 75 agencies and organizations. These new and used books land in the hands of children and teens that might not otherwise have them.

For $.99 you can download a kindle copy of the Five Elements Anthology and get seven short stories, knowing that all the profit (about $0.30 per book) will benefit Books for Kids. If interested, here’s the Amazon link:Five Elements Anthology

From May 7 – May 11, Five Elements Anthology will be Free on Kindle. In order to preserve our commitment to children’s literacy, I will make a direct donation of $0.30 to benefit Books for Kids for every free download up to $100.00 (and will post the receipt).

Of course, direct tax-deductible donations to Books from Kids are more than welcome and can be made on their website. The link is here: Books for Kids

Thank you for everything you do in your own way to support future readers.

That was a great picture of your grandson. I remember how my son loved me to read a word book to him. It had a funny animal picture for each word. It was so loved it began to come apart, and I had to tape it back together. He’s still an avid reader. My daughter liked being read to, but didn’t become much of a reader until about Grade 4 when she joined a reading club at school. I bought Garfield cartoon books for her to get her to read at first. She loves to read now. 🙂

Those early books seem to require lots of tape, don’t they?Miraculously, we have an animal-sounds book that has been read to three generations of babies. Cartoon books work for engaging kids in reading. I started with comic books that my parents would buy for us when we went camping. It’s all good.

It’s a great thing to start reading so early, Diana. I have pictures of my 7 month old in a rocking horse walker thing, turning the pages of her books and mouthing the words before she could walk. ☺ Van

So cute and amazing – their little brains working so hard. It’s a fact that kids who read do better in school on average than kids who don’t. It’s also a great way for parents and children to spend time together.